“ Ban mining, let the bastards freeze in the dark”.

One of the reasons that people feel screwed by the electric utility and energy utilities in general is because of the arrogant behavior of executives in the utility industry. Enron is the poster child for this behavior but much of the industry’s arrogance is perfectly legal and supported by federal and state laws.

Public Citizen, Inc, is a non-profit membership organization that lobbies for strong citizen and consumer protection laws. They say, "We fight for openness and democratic accountability in government, for the right of consumers to seek redress in the courts; for clean, safe and sustainable energy sources; for social and economic justice in trade policies; for strong health, safety and environmental protections; and for safe, effective and affordable prescription drugs and health care".(Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/index.cfm)

Their review of the Dominici -Barton Energy Policy Act of 2005 chronicles a list of tax breaks and incentives that reduce tax income and provide regulatory incentives that will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars to support healthy profit making electric generation and transmission companies along with private energy companies. This same legislation pays lip service to renewable and clean energy alternatives while decimating the Public Utility Holding Company Act. They write;"Repeal of PUHCA and Merger Reform-The 70-year-old consumer and investor protection statute would be completely abolished within six months, opening up ownership of approximately $1 trillion worth of electric generation, transmission and distribution assets and natural gas distribution assets to any kind of company, anywhere, for the first time since 1935. At that time, hundreds of Enron-type affiliate and other abuses took place between holding companies and their utility subsidiaries resulting in the collapse of the holding company empires, which wiped out tens of thousands of investor"s.

NewEnergyFuture.com is a project of state public interest groups and state-based environmental groups around the country. State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) are state-based, nonpartisan advocates for the public interest. Groups such as Environment California, Environment Colorado, Environment Maine and PennEnvironment combine research and advocacy to improve the quality of the environment in their states. Please spare me the red state blue state comments. Its all one state - the state of our world.

They had similar reaction to federal legislation proposed in 2001. Their executive summary reported, "H.R. 4, the House energy plan passed on August 2, 2001, is dirty, dangerous and does not deliver for consumers. It uses taxpayer dollars to subsidize profitable and polluting corporations, leaving consumers with little more than the side effects of a shortsighted and dirty energy policy—more drilling, more spilling, more air pollution, more global warming, and more radioactive waste. The House energy plan is unbalanced, devoting barely a quarter of the subsidies and tax breaks to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Instead, H.R. 4 includes $38 billion in subsidies and tax breaks for polluters, sacrificing meaningful investment in renewable energy and perpetuating America’s dependence on polluting fossil fuels and nuclear power, the most dangerous and expensive source of power available. The oil and gas, mining, auto and electric utility industries, having contributed $18.4 million to federal candidates in the 1999-2000 election, enjoyed a return on their investment by a factor of more than 2,000 in this bill alone. (http://newenergyfuture.com)

Now that you’re really pissed off, you owe it to yourself to learn more about how the industry works.

To make electricity you must turn a generator of some kind For example, in order to charge your car battery and keep your car’s electrical system going you have to turn your alternator’s main shaft. And, you have to turn it at the proper speeds and duration to get the proper results. You can also generate electricity without "turning things" by using certain chemical reactions, like hydrogen fuel cells and solar collector silicon wafers.
That’s pretty much it. In order to rotate a generator you need energy. Either mechanical energy like wind and hydro-power, chemical energy like solar or fuel cells, or heat energy, like coal, or gas or something else that you burn or combust to make heat like nuclear energy or garbage etc.

2005 Data from the EPA (http://beta.blogger.com/(http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html) ,shows the following energy generation sources nation wide.

2005(thousand megawatt hours)

Coal - 2013179 - 49.65%
Petroleum- 122522 - 3.02%
Natural Gas - 757974 - 18.69%
Other gas - 16317 - 0.40%
Nuclear - 781986 - 19.29%
Hydro-Electric - 269587 - 6.65%
Renewables - 94932 - 2.34%
Pump Storage - -6558 - -0.16%
Other - 4749 - 0.12%

Some areas of the country have higher coal use with about 80 to 90 % of their electricity being made from steam driven turbines that are powered from the heat of coal. This technology has been around a long time. Natural gas became a popular fuel to make electricity in the 1970 and 80's because it was considered a cleaner burning fuel than coal and less expensive than oil or gasoline. Increases in natural gas costs make this fuel less popular today and most natural gas generation facilities tend to only be used to cover peak electricity demand that can not be met by base load coal generation.

Coal generation today costs between 3 and 5 cents per kilowatt hour. This rate would be higher if the subsidies mentioned by Public Citizen are taken away. Wind Energy comes with in 2-3 cents of coals kilowatt hour rate, as long as the Production Tax Credits stay in place. This is the cost of generating electricity and transmitting it to your distribution company. You mine the coal, gas or oil and you ship the fuel to a power plant and you burn it to make electricity. Or you turn turbines with wind or water to make electricity.

Then you transmit the electricity directly to the load at just the right time to keep the lights from going dim. This takes lots of planning and coordination and lots of resources; people and machinery to mine the energy; trains, trucks and drivers to ship it and power plants, wind towers or dams, transmission lines and specially trained operators and technicians to keep the whole thing going smoothly. So, all of this is great for the economy, to a certain extent.

So what’s the problem? Even the most optimistic analysts predict that some day we will run out of fossil fuels. The pessimists believe we will destroy the earth long before we run out leaving the planet a massive re-enactment of industrial London, England with the choking soot filled skies of the 16th and 17th centuries; and a climate altered beyond its ability to feed or care for living things. More about that later.

Alternative power to the rescue right? It never runs out. Not so fast. Yes, there are cleaner alternatives to power generation. Yet the meager 2.34% of renewable power generation shown the chart above is small for several good reasons. One reason is that alternative energy costs the consumer more at the meter. Winning support and understanding for renewables is hard when there is a feeling that a change will raise your electric bill. The other reason is that these industries are still evolving and face challenges of education, distribution and education that conventional sources over came decades ago.

So many questions and so much research to do. I’ll just keep banging away here trying to explain a complicated subject in simple terms. As Carl Sagan said, "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." I love that quote. You will probably see it again.